The John Ford Collection

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tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#1 Post by tavernier » Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:40 pm

Warner Press Release:

THE JOHN FORD COLLECTION

THE LOST PATROL - THE INFORMER - CHEYENNE AUTUMN

MARY OF SCOTLAND - SERGEANT RUTLEDGE

Five New-To-DVD Titles by Four-Time Academy Award®-Winning Director Make Their Debut June 6th

Burbank, Calif. March 6, 2006 - On June 6th, Warner Home Video will celebrate one of the true masters of American cinema with the release of The John Ford Collection. Ford is perhaps best known for his Westerns and collaborations with John Wayne, whom WHV is also honoring with another collection on the same release date. However, this Ford collection runs the gamut of genres and shows the diversity and genius of John Ford at his most impressive. Featured here will be the DVD debuts of five classic titles. The Lost Patrol, The Informer and Cheyenne Autumn will be available individually for $19.97 SRP. Mary of Scotland and Sergeant Rutledge will be exclusive to the five-disc boxed set which will sell for $59.92 SRP.

Ford is best known for his incredible series of classic westerns (Stagecoach, The Searchers); however, his impressive four Best Director Academy Awards® (The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, and The Quiet Man) were for work outside the western genre and remain somewhat overlooked today.

The Informer, for which John Ford earned his first Best Director Academy Award and star Victor McLaglen took home a Best Actor statuette, makes its DVD debut here, restored and remastered from the original camera negative. It's included in WHV's new Collection along with political drama The Lost Patrol (1934) also starring Victor McLaglen as well as Boris Karloff, and restored to its original theatrical release running time, plus the poignant and impressive epic Mary of Scotland which starred Katharine Hepburn and Fredric March. Rounding out the collection is Cheyenne Autumn, a 1964 widescreen epic, restored to its full roadshow length and glory with a new 5.1 soundtrack. It turned out to be Ford's last Western which ranks as one of his most ambitious and moving works. And lastly is the cult favorite Sergeant Rutledge, another landmark Western notable for exploring racism in the West, starring Woody Strode in the title role.

Orson Welles referred to John Ford as the greatest "poet" movies have given us. Welles actually viewed Stagecoach 40 times before filming began on Citizen Kane (1941), noting that his directing style was influenced by the old guys, the "classical" film makers. When asked who, he replied, "John Ford, John Ford and John Ford."

Ford's directing style was one of measured simplicity. His pace is slow and his shots unpretentious. He keeps the camera at eye-level with hardly a dolly-shot in site. Early in his career, Ford talked about what he called "invisible technique" or making an audience forget they were watching a movie. And though it's possible to trace the much-vaunted lighting style and deep focus of Orson Welles Citizen Kane to Ford's earlier films, his later Technicolor works are just as visually imaginative.

The Lost Patrol

Filmed in the scorching Arizona desert, John Ford guides this powerful tale of men and mortality set in World War I Mesopotamia. Victor McLaglen, who would claim the following year's Best Actor (1935) Oscar® as Ford's protagonist in The Informer, plays a stalwart sergeant who takes charge as he and his men try to escape the unseen snipers who felled their captain. Boris Karloff (Frankenstein) is a religious firebrand whose zeal turns to feverish madness. And the unforgiving terrain is as much an enemy as the snipers it conceals.

The Informer

John Ford earned his first Best Director Academy Award and star Victor McLaglen took home a Best Actor statuette for this searing four-time Oscar® winner set in 1922 Dublin. Timely in its portrait of murderous political strife between occupier and insurgent and timeless in its exploration of the tortured netherworld of human guilt, The Informer is filmmaking for the ages.

Special Features:

· New Featurette The Informer: Out of the Fog

· Theatrical trailer

Mary of Scotland

Directed by the legendary John Ford and adapted from Maxwell Anderson's powerful play, Mary of Scotland gave Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story) one of her finest early roles. Both fierce and fragile as the headstrong queen, Hepburn is brilliantly matched by Fredric March (Anna Karenina, I Married a Witch) as her courageous lover Bothwell and by Florence Eldridge (March's real life wife) as Elizabeth, who is everything Mary is not: physically plain, politically shrewd...and victorious.

Sergeant Rutledge

Ford crafts the story of Sergeant Rutledge (Woody Strode), a 9th Cavalry officer on trial for rape and murder in 1866. Lt. Cantrell (Jeffrey Hunter) defends Rutledge as witnesses give testimony (relived in flashbacks) revealing the sergeant's gallantry - and the shocking truth behind the alleged crimes. Ford, who attacked racism in The Searchers, explores similar territory in this landmark Western, the power of which still rings out with uncommon force decades later.

Special Features:

· Theatrical trailer

· Languages: English & Français

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (feature film only)

Cheyenne Autumn

The last Western from director John Ford ranks as one of his most ambitious and moving works. Ford outfits his Trail-of-Tears-like saga with a strong cast, stunning cinematography by long-time collaborator William Clothier and a stirring Alex North score. To play the Cheyenne nation desperately struggling to return to the Yellowstone homeland across 1,500 treacherous miles, Ford recruited hundreds of Navajo tribesmen, many of them veterans of Ford movies dating back to 1939's Stagecoach. The location (which Ford used for the ninth time) is "John Ford Country" - the canyons, buttes and mesas of Monument Valley. Cheyenne Autumn is compassionate, epic artistry from one of Hollywood's most revered filmmakers.

Its all-star cast was headed by Richard Widmark (The Alamo, How the West was Won), Carroll Baker (Baby Doll, Harlow), Karl Malden (On the Waterfront, Gypsy), Sal Mineo (Rebel Without a Cause, Exodus), Dolores Del Rio (Wonder Bar, The Fugitive), Ricardo Montalban (Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn, "Fantasy Island") and Gilbert Roland (Our Betters, The French Line).

Special Features:

· New digital transfer from restored roadshow length picture and audio elements

· Archival behind-the scenes featurette Cheyenne Autumn Trail

· Commentary by Joseph McBride

· Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1

· Theatrical trailer

· Subtitles: English, Français & Español (Feature Film Only)

More About John Ford

John Ford was born Sean Aloysius O'Fearna in Maine in 1894, the eleventh and last child of an Irish immigrant family. He was introduced into the movie industry by his brother Francis, who had established a career for himself and knocked around the industry as an actor and cowboy (riding as one of the Klansmen in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation). Claiming he got a directing job from Carl Laemmle (founder of Universal) because "he yells real loud," he made numerous shorts and early feature films, largely Westerns starring Harry Carey (who would appear in countless Ford films until his death).

His pictorial sense of composition, which bloomed fully in his westerns, flowered in the silent era, particularly with The Iron Horse and 3 Bad Men. He made the transition to talking films with The Black Watch (1929) starring Victor McLaglen and quickly became one of the top directors on the Fox lot, with a string of successful pictures starring the legendary pundit Will Rogers and Arrowsmith with Ronald Colman. He switched easily from war drama (The Lost Patrol) to comedy (The Whole Town's Talking) to straight drama (The Informer) to spectacle (The Hurricane) to historical drama (The Prisoner of Shark Island).

By the late '30s, his talent had reached its full potential and he churned out classic after classic, pausing only for a stint in the Second World War (where he headed the newly formed Navy Field Photographic Unit). After returning from service, he focused mainly on westerns (My Darling Clementine, The Searchers) and war stories (What Price Glory, Mister Roberts), although he occasionally produced films that displayed his former versatility (The Quiet Man, Mogambo).

THE JOHN FORD COLLECTION

Street Date: June 6, 2006

Catalog #: 39804

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ellipsis7
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 1:56 pm
Location: Dublin

#2 Post by ellipsis7 » Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:46 pm

Very good - I might well pick up the set... Have 48 Ford films mainly on VHS, but replacing them gradually on DVD

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FilmFanSea
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:37 pm
Location: Portland, OR

#3 Post by FilmFanSea » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:06 pm

Hmmm ... the speculation was that this set would contain--in addition to The Informer--They Were Expendable, The Long Voyage Home, and The Wings of Eagles. The announced titles are much less desirable for me, so I think I'll pass & wait for The John Ford Collection 2.

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tavernier
Joined: Sat Apr 02, 2005 7:18 pm

#4 Post by tavernier » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:13 pm

FilmFanSea wrote:Hmmm ... the speculation was that this set would contain--in addition to The Informer--They Were Expendable, The Long Voyage Home, and The Wings of Eagles. The announced titles are much less desirable for me, so I think I'll pass & wait for The John Ford Collection 2.
Your wish has been granted:

viewtopic.php?t=3983

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What A Disgrace
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
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#5 Post by What A Disgrace » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:34 pm

Didn't Warner recently state that they would be using slim cases in their boxes, when certain titles (in this case, Mary and Rutledge) are exclusive to the box?

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Steven H
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:30 pm
Location: NC

#6 Post by Steven H » Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:02 pm

Here's a funny typo at dvdplanet.com.

"They Were Expandable"? Why can't I stop chuckling at this?

viciousliar
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:12 am

#7 Post by viciousliar » Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:50 pm

Steven H wrote:Here's a funny typo at dvdplanet.com.

"They Were Expandable"? Why can't I stop chuckling at this?
Presumably because you possess a dirty mind, hon. :oops: Or is it just me? :roll:

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Steven H
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:30 pm
Location: NC

#8 Post by Steven H » Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:52 pm

davidhare wrote:I'm sure we're all thinking the same thing. What else to do for a bunch of guys at sea?
Unfortunately they fixed it.

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justeleblanc
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:05 pm
Location: Connecticut

#9 Post by justeleblanc » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:17 pm


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Gigi M.
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 5:09 pm
Location: Santo Domingo, Dominican Rep

#10 Post by Gigi M. » Mon May 29, 2006 1:22 pm


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